On Wednesday, October 21, a judge of the state court in Santa Fe, New Mexico, ordered Meta to pay a $25 billion penalty for misleading Facebook users about data privacy. Meta plans to appeal.
This is not a regulator’s decision but a court ruling in a civil case brought in 2021 by the State of New Mexico. According to US News, citing the AP agency, it is the largest penalty in history against the owner of Facebook. The case concerns the „Cambridge Analytica” scandal, which came to light in 2018.
What the Penalty Is For
In September, after a two-week trial, the jury found that Meta committed more than 43 million violations of state consumer protection laws. According to the court, the company misled users about how it collected and protected data and how it enforced content moderation rules. The British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained data from as many as 87 million Facebook users without their consent and used it to target political ads.
Judge Francis J. Mathew wrote in his ruling that Facebook promised users control over their data, and that „this was false” (quoted by US News). According to Reuters, as cited by TheWrap, the judge found that the irregularities concerned the core of the company’s business model.
Where the $25 Billion Comes From
New Mexico law provides for penalties of up to $5,000 per violation. According to The National Desk, court documents showed an amount of $219.5 billion, which the judge reduced to $25 billion. The state sought $35-40 billion, while Meta’s lawyers argued the penalty should not exceed $3.4 billion. They also argued that a significantly higher amount would violate constitutional guarantees of due process and would not survive an appeal.
According to AP, interest on the awarded amount will accrue during the appeal, and the number of violations may be reduced. Mediaite reports an interest rate of 15% per year. The money is to go to educational purposes in New Mexico.
Reactions and Context
State Attorney General Raul Torrez said at a press conference that the verdict is a signal to technology giants. Meta rejects the charges. It argues that the state did not prove that its public statements misled consumers or that users suffered harm. Until now, the largest penalty against the company in privacy cases was $5 billion, imposed in 2019 by US federal authorities after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The BBC compares the new amount to the $18 billion settlement with California.
For scale: in 2025 Meta earned about $60.5 billion in net profit on revenue of about $201 billion (data from the JFeed service).
What It Means
The ruling concerns the State of New Mexico and American law, so it does not directly change the rules for users in Poland. The data of European Meta users is subject to the GDPR and the supervision of the Irish regulator, which in 2023 imposed a record fine of EUR 1.2 billion on the company. The $25 billion amount is for now not final. The appeal could change it significantly, and the timing of a decision is not known.
